On July 20, 1983 (June 11th of the lunar calendar), Yang Chongrui, a pioneer in my country's maternal and child health industry, passed away.

Yang Chongrui was born in 1891 in a middle-peasant family in Tongxian County. She studied with her father since she was a child, and the seeds of pursuing science were sown in her young mind. In 1917, she graduated from Union Medical College with a medical doctorate. In 1922, she worked in the obstetrics and gynecology department of Union Hospital and went to rural areas to investigate the health status of women and children. In order to reduce maternal and infant mortality in our country, Yang Chongrui dedicated herself to the prevention of puerperal fever and neonatal tetanus. She used her clinical time to conduct prenatal examination and disease treatment for pregnant women and other female workers in the Beijing Dengshikou Charity Factory, and set up a maternity examination center outside Chaoyangmen, specializing in pregnancy examination and gynecological treatment. In 1925, she was selected to study obstetrics and gynecology at Hopkins University in the United States, and was regarded as one of her two best students by Professor William, an international authority on obstetrics and gynecology. However, thinking of the urgent needs of maternal and child health work in the vast rural areas of China, Yang Chongrui resolutely left the clinical work of obstetrics and gynecology that had been engaged in for 10 years and achieved outstanding results after returning to China, and transferred to the group health care cause that was not valued by ordinary people at that time. In 1929, she appealed to many parties to overcome difficulties and established the Beijing National No. 1 Midwifery School and its affiliated maternity hospital. In 1933, she founded the Nanjing Central Midwifery School and served as the president herself. She was rigorous in her studies and set "the spirit of sacrifice, for the benefit of mankind" as the school's "school motto" as the goal of students. Later, she successively established more than 60 midwifery schools across It is particularly worth mentioning that as early as the early 1930s, she foresaw the seriousness of the population problem with the foresight of a medical scientist, put forward the proposition of "limiting the number of population and improving the quality of population", edited the "Birth Control News", and founded the "Birth Control Guidance Institute", which can be regarded as a pioneer in advocating family planning in our country. When the Anti-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Dr. Yang Chongrui, who was working in Geneva, resolutely returned to China and joined the Chinese Red Cross Medical Team. In 1948, [on this day in history] Yang Chongrui was hired by the International Health Organization as the deputy head of the United Nations Maternal and Child Health Team. The following year, when she visited various European countries, she was overjoyed to hear the news of the founding of New China. In order to realize her wish to serve the motherland, she resolutely refused the invitation of her friends, gave up the high salary and important position of the United Nations, and returned to the motherland. After returning home, she was cordially received by Chairperson Mao and Premier Zhou. She was appointed as the first director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China.

Dr. Yang Chongrui loved the motherland, the people, and the maternal and child health cause she fought for all her life. She held an important position, but she lived a simple life all her life, and used the money she saved for midwifery education and local maternal and child health causes. After her death in 1983, her relatives donated all the RMB 69,000 and books and magazines she had saved to the state according to her will.

In May 1938, the executive directors and some responsible persons of the China War Child Care Association took a group photo. From the left in the front row: Zhao Yiheng, Lv Xiaodao, Chen Jiyi, Shen Cijiu, Xu Jingping, Qian Yonghe, Chen Yiyun; from the left in the middle row: Zhang Aizhen, An'e, Zhuang Jing, Song Meiling, Li Dequan, Xie Lanyu, Yang Chongrui, Wu Yifang; from the left in the back row: Meng Qingshu, Liu Qingyang, Tang Guozhen, Shen Huilian, Cao Mengjun, Guo Xiuyi, Shi Liang, Deng Yingchao.